I saw that 1st Gen. Moto X (xt1049) is no longer receiving security updates from Motorola as of 1/2018. Is this a major issue in which I should be switching to a new phone in the immediate future, or is this more of a scare tactic by Motorola? Just checking to see how seriously I need to respond to Motorola’s warning.

It’s not a scare tactic. It is more that the gen 1 X is, essentially, headed for obsolescence, at this point. The original battery would be little able to hold a charge, in most cases. As phones become faster and more powerful, new apps and app updates are designed to use the updated resources, making the software difficult to run on older, slower phones, and so on, and so on. If you have had a new battery installed in your X1, then the battery isn’t the issue, of course.

But, Motorola is building a lot of nice, new phones. Supporting older phones, of which there a few in use anymore, just gets in the way of progress with developing competitive new products.

That’s the main reason. No doubt, it does nudge the user of older phones toward consideration of a new phone. But, keep in mind, there are exploits out there now that deal with the processors that can only be remedied with a problematic software patch that may slow the device considerably. This affects phone processors as well as computer processors.

Cell phones, like TVs, cars, computers, and everything else, get old and fade from favor. That’s the foundation of progress and a capitalist society, right?

Thanks, beachb. “Scare tactic” might have been an overstatement. Truly, I was looking for advice about the urgency in updating my phones. They are getting to the end of their life but didn’t know what level of urgency I needed to get new phones since they are now unsupported by Motorola for security updates.

Thanks southpaw for the title update. Makes sense and is more accurate.